Archive for July, 2012

loose ends…

Sunday, July 15th, 2012

This summer so far has been an E-ticket ride! My elderly father died three weeks ago and I am having my second knee replaced in just two days. I have been tossing about like a cork in water with little direction this past month. Yesterday was my father’s memorial and it was great, a wonderful send-off that I think he would have enjoyed. It was such a fantastic reminder about living life to the fullest which I tend to do when I am not over-working or over-worrying. I am physically and emotionally drained though and am now actually looking forward to a few days of forced bed rest!

Last week I finished the re-purposing of 7 favorite stained t-shirts into one! And the re-purposing of a machine embroidered heavy cotton Mexican vest I bought in Texas for a mere $19. It was a funny cut, really long in the body with armholes cut to fit a small child. I took it apart and re-sewed then asked a man watching a baseball game to photograph it and thus we have this image quality!

Today we bought a propane grill after years of debating it. While hubby is assembling it in the garage I gathered up the charcoal grill components from the deck. I found two briquet lighting canisters. One was incredibly rusted so it is headed for my dye-paint studio for some future rusting possibilities! While I am down there I will paint some masked shoes that have been on the work table for too long.

And then there will be just one more art-design related project I want to do pre-op. Well two. I want to clean my studio floor and I want to draft a template for new work so when I am ready to give that new leg a go in a month or two I will be ready to start. For me starting in with a blank wall is next to impossible!

Catch you on the other side…of surgery that is!

Posted in knee surgery, procrastination, time management | 2 Comments »

rituals…

Saturday, July 7th, 2012

This spring my work Keeping Up Appearances #5 was selected for the Dinner@Eight annual invitational exhibit. The theme was ‘Rituals’ and I chose the ritual of table setting for my piece. The exhibit catalog is now available from Blurb. It’s a beautiful book!

For this piece the main fabric was what else? a heavy cotton tablecloth woven in metallic threads in a block pattern. I screen-printed more of the 1950’s etiquette text on this cloth last fall just before I had my first knee replacement.

The fabric hung on my design wall all throughout my recovery as my inspiration to begin anew. My original idea underwent a metamorphosis during that time and I ended up designing something completely different. I used tulle between layers which basically created a nightmare for stitching but in the end I was pleased with the results.

Now just ten days from my second knee replacement I am thinking about what I want on the wall next to inspire me! There have been some fabrics pinned up there for awhile that still inspire but as my father’s health declined nothing was started. So these fabrics will remain there but I may draw the template for another stone path piece now when it is easier physically to do so. I anticipate a much more rapid recovery this time around because I do know what to expect. Yet in reality I just have my eye trained on the prize…being fully mobile in the world once more.

Posted in knee surgery, surface design, textures | No Comments »

while making other plans…

Sunday, July 1st, 2012

Today is July 1st and I am rapidly coming up on the date for my second knee replacement. I chose to have this surgery in July because I will be 9 months out from the first replacement and sufficiently healed to start the process all over again. I do not relish this opportunity but have kept my focus on the end result and was reminded the other day no one anticipates surgery with great joy!

Much as I approached the first replacement I’ve been in the studio wrapping up some projects and beginning a few small ones. I thought for sure I would get one more large piece done before I was rendered studio-disabled for while. That is until two weeks ago.

That was when we received word that my father’s health was rapidly declining. He died this past week at the awesome age of 88 years. He had been afflicted with dementia for 7 years so in essence a part of him died some time ago.

Years ago after losing two of my closest friends to cancer I became a hospice bereavement volunteer where I became familiar with the cycles of grief. And while I believe I was prepared to lose my dad and am ‘handling’ that pretty well, I had forgotten about the first phase…shock!

I am in a brain fog. I start to talk and cannot think of what I wanted to say. If I write it down I just stare at the paper. Nothing seems to compute. And yet I have verbal diarrhea where I can talk non-stop to anyone who has the patience to listen long enough.

Now I know I am not going to get one more piece made before surgery. I will be fortunate if I get my work out to exhibits it is committed to and send images where they need to go let alone attend to details for the memorial which is 3 days before surgery. I will be lucky if I get the design table cleaned up.

It is always a challenge for this ‘human doing’ to slow down and give the body the time it needs to heal …both from surgery and from life that happened while I was making other plans.

Posted in aging, knee surgery, wisdom | 1 Comment »